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Cold Cases: Slaying of Spartanburg teen 43 years ago still a mystery

Family of Michael Hinson still grieves

Remembering

Pam Howell holds photographs of her brother, Michael Hinson, who was murdered more than 40 years ago in Spartanburg. His case remains unsolved. At left is Hinson's father, Bob Hinson, and at right is Hinson's mother, Billie Hinson.

Published: Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 3:15 a.m.

Last Modified: Sunday, October 13, 2013 at 1:20 a.m.

Teenage boys high on adrenaline. A beer-fueled cat-and-mouse game by car. A mysterious phone call. All are part of the mystery surrounding the unsolved killing of Michael Andrew Hinson in September 1970.

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Michael, 17, was shot to death on a Friday night after Dorman High School played Walhalla. After the football game, the Dorman junior and rising baseball star caught a ride home with some friends.

Allan Wood, cold case investigator for the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office, said one of the boys had a fake I.D., and the group bought beer at the Ice House on Howard Street before riding up Asheville Highway. They planned to go to a friend's house on Magness Drive in the Hilltop community. At the traffic light on Asheville Highway and California Avenue, the boys were turning right when Michael yelled out the window at someone he saw in the parking lot of a gas station at the intersection (now a used car lot).

“Painter,” Michael yelled, according to a coroner's inquest. His friends told authorities that Michael thought he saw another boy he knew.

The boys went on to Magness Drive to see if their friend was home. That's when they realized they were being followed by a 1967 Plymouth Fury I, believed to have come from the parking lot of the service station. During the inquest, one of Hinson's friends said the driver of the Fury hit the gas, causing the tires to squeal.

The two cars began a cat-and-mouse game through Hilltop and stopped at Bethany Baptist Church, where Michael got out of the car and yelled for the driver of the Fury to stop. The driver continued on and the boys and Michael followed it up Alamo Street and back down Asheville Highway. The boys turned right into the Cleveland Park area, where the Fury disappeared.

Michael and his friends drove back to Hilltop. The Fury came up behind them, then passed them and drove into Hilltop ahead of them. The teenagers followed. The cars were often traveling at high speeds, according to authorities.

“We rode around in Hilltop for a few minutes and we got back on the Asheville Highway going towards town,” one of boys said in the inquest. “They stopped at the red light at the Shell Station … at California Avenue,” the boy said.

“The car that had been following you?” then-coroner George Adams asked.

The boy said yes and told Adams that they were following the Fury then.

“Mike got out and said he was going to see what they wanted. He went up there and I heard a shot and seen him fall back,” the boy said. “I looked up and he was falling back. Fell back on one hand and got up. He started walking back to the car and they (the Fury) run the red light.”

Michael was never one to back down from a fight, Wood said. He got out of the car and went to the passenger side window. His friends told detectives they saw him reach into the car.

Michael returned to the car and told his friends he'd been shot. His friends helped him back into the car and rushed him to what was then Spartanburg General Hospital. They told authorities that the Fury, described as faded, “chalkboard” green, continued toward Cleveland Park and turned right from Asheville Highway into Glenwood Estate. They never saw the car again. They told authorities they never got a good look at the two men in the car, although they believed they were 19 or 20 years old, and the passenger was white, with long, black hair.

Michael never regained consciousness and died a short time later. Dr. Michael F. Patton, a pathologist, wrote in his report that the .22-caliber bullet passed through Michael's diaphragm, stomach, pancreas and aorta and lodged in the first lumbar vertebra. Cause of death was massive internal bleeding.

The lead investigator on the case at the time, Clarence Painter, said during the inquest, which was conducted Nov. 18, 1970, that he had a detective assigned full time to the Hinson case and pulled him off any other cases for several weeks. A State Law Enforcement Division agent also had been working the case.

“We have run out every lead that we have had information on, we have checked every '68 to '70 model Fury green Plymouth we've seen,” Painter told Adams. “We have run out every lead that we know to run out at this time.”

Michael's mother, Billie Hinson, attended the inquest. Her anguish a month after her son's death, with no arrest, is evident from the transcript.

“Now all these people that seen these cars and the car had been settin' at that Shell station and it's light as day there at night, and yet, no service station attendant there can tell you the model car,” she said. “Plenty of people know cars, especially men.”

Painter replied that they had spoken to the night attendant at the Shell, who had heard the cars chasing or “running” each other, and at one point, the Plymouth cut through the station yard with the Ford behind. The attendant told investigators that the boys in the Ford with Michael had a large soda bottle and were shaking it at the Fury to try to get it to stop.

“The attendant told us he knew something was wrong and he got the license number of the Ford … but he failed to get the license number of the Plymouth,” Painter said.

After a coroner's inquest, a jury was asked to determine how Michael came to his death. The foreman read the verdict: “We the coroner's jury … find that Mike Hinson came to his death as the result of a bullet wound by an unknown assailant.”

Billie Hinson's frustration and grief still come across today, 43 years later. She still sheds tears as she talks about her son and the investigation into his death. She'll never forget the lead investigator, Painter, coming up to her the day after her son died.

“He said, 'Before this day is over, we'll know who killed your son,' ” she said.

But a month later, the case had grown cold. During the inquest, the family's attorney grilled an officer about the case.

“You never close a case, do you?” the attorney asked.

“No, sir; this case is still open,” officer Don Morgan replied.

“You keep working on it as long as you live?” the attorney asked.

“Yes, sir,” Morgan said.

Painter said during the inquest that he would call in Michael's friends, ask them a round of questions, then call them in a few days later to see if they remembered anything else. Eventually, though, investigators stopped getting any new information from the boys.

Billie Hinson expressed her frustration to Painter back then.

“Painter told me that the boys were getting tired of being called in for questioning,” said Billie Hinson, now 83. “I said, 'Well, I've got a son laying out there in Greenlawn.'”

A disturbing aspect of the case happened a week or two after the shooting.

Michael's father, Bob, now 80, believes that if the suspect or the woman who called are still alive, then there is someone out there who knows exactly what happened.

“It's been 43 years,” he said, his eyes welling with tears. “We don't want it forgotten.”

Billie and Bob Hinson and their daughter Pam Howell aren't saying that Michael was innocent during the incident. If someone shot him in self-defense, they want someone to talk to police about it.

“Give our family some peace,” Pam Howell, 62, said. “Tell the police who you are, why you did it. Just so we can know what happened and get some closure. It's been 43 years, but it doesn't really get any easier.”

Michael was a natural baseball player, a pitcher who made the varsity team as a ninth-grader at Dorman. His brother, Danny, three years older, had pitched the first no-hitter for Dorman during his time on the team. Michael didn't care for studying much, but he loved baseball. His letter jacket, wrapped in plastic, still hangs in a closet at the Hinsons' home.

Described by his sister as a “pretty boy,” Michael was well liked by the girls and had a girlfriend that the family believes he would have married.

But instead, his mother Billie Hinson said, “He didn't get to be a senior or graduate.”

If he had lived, Bob Hinson said he and Billie would probably have three or four more grandchildren, adding to the eight grandsons and 11 great-grandchildren they have.

“It feels like part of you is missing,” Bob Hinson said.

Investigator Wood first took over the Hinson case in 1999. He's spoken to a couple of men who were in the car that night. They say they don't remember much.

If the shooting happened today, investigators would likely have a clear picture of a suspect's vehicle, from gas station surveillance or any number of businesses in the area of Asheville Highway and California Avenue. Through the SLED Fusion Center, they could get a list of vehicles of the same type registered in Spartanburg County.

“You can narrow those down to a workable list,” Wood said. One of the boys with Michael said he thought he saw the car as he worked at Colonial Grocery on North Church Street (now the county administration building), but in 1970, a Fury wouldn't have stood out.

“I actually kind of developed a suspect, but I couldn't put him in a Fury,” Wood said.

And the phone call Billie Hinson received, had it happened today?

“It would have been traceable 10 different ways,” Wood said.

Wood believes the driver and passenger in the Fury may have gone to Spartanburg High School because they were seen turning into Glenwood Estate and Cleveland Park. That would explain why Michael and his friends didn't recognize them and why it was easy for the men in the Fury to lose the other group in the Cleveland Park area.

“It might explain how they disappeared,” said Wood, taking a drive around Cleveland Park on a recent afternoon. “With some of these houses, the driveway pulls around back.”

Even if the shooter felt that he pulled the trigger in self-defense, Wood hopes he will come forward. He believes there are at least three people who know what happened that fall night — the driver of the car and the passenger, along with the woman who called Billie Hinson. Wood theorizes that one of the two men in the car told their mother, who then called the grieving mother.

“I think the family deserves an explanation to why they lost a son,” Wood said. “You don't want things like this to be unsolved in your community. What should have been a fistfight turned into a gunshot.”

<p>Teenage boys high on adrenaline. A beer-fueled cat-and-mouse game by car. A mysterious phone call. All are part of the mystery surrounding the unsolved killing of Michael Andrew Hinson in September 1970.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>Michael, 17, was shot to death on a Friday night after Dorman High School played Walhalla. After the football game, the Dorman junior and rising baseball star caught a ride home with some friends.</p><p>Allan Wood, cold case investigator for the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office, said one of the boys had a fake I.D., and the group bought beer at the Ice House on Howard Street before riding up Asheville Highway. They planned to go to a friend's house on Magness Drive in the Hilltop community. At the traffic light on Asheville Highway and California Avenue, the boys were turning right when Michael yelled out the window at someone he saw in the parking lot of a gas station at the intersection (now a used car lot).</p><p>“Painter,” Michael yelled, according to a coroner's inquest. His friends told authorities that Michael thought he saw another boy he knew.</p><p>The boys went on to Magness Drive to see if their friend was home. That's when they realized they were being followed by a 1967 Plymouth Fury I, believed to have come from the parking lot of the service station. During the inquest, one of Hinson's friends said the driver of the Fury hit the gas, causing the tires to squeal.</p><p>The two cars began a cat-and-mouse game through Hilltop and stopped at Bethany Baptist Church, where Michael got out of the car and yelled for the driver of the Fury to stop. The driver continued on and the boys and Michael followed it up Alamo Street and back down Asheville Highway. The boys turned right into the Cleveland Park area, where the Fury disappeared.</p><p>Michael and his friends drove back to Hilltop. The Fury came up behind them, then passed them and drove into Hilltop ahead of them. The teenagers followed. The cars were often traveling at high speeds, according to authorities.</p><p>“We rode around in Hilltop for a few minutes and we got back on the Asheville Highway going towards town,” one of boys said in the inquest. “They stopped at the red light at the Shell Station … at California Avenue,” the boy said.</p><p>“The car that had been following you?” then-coroner George Adams asked.</p><p>The boy said yes and told Adams that they were following the Fury then.</p><p>“Mike got out and said he was going to see what they wanted. He went up there and I heard a shot and seen him fall back,” the boy said. “I looked up and he was falling back. Fell back on one hand and got up. He started walking back to the car and they (the Fury) run the red light.”</p><p>Michael was never one to back down from a fight, Wood said. He got out of the car and went to the passenger side window. His friends told detectives they saw him reach into the car.</p><p>Michael returned to the car and told his friends he'd been shot. His friends helped him back into the car and rushed him to what was then Spartanburg General Hospital. They told authorities that the Fury, described as faded, “chalkboard” green, continued toward Cleveland Park and turned right from Asheville Highway into Glenwood Estate. They never saw the car again. They told authorities they never got a good look at the two men in the car, although they believed they were 19 or 20 years old, and the passenger was white, with long, black hair.</p><p>Michael never regained consciousness and died a short time later. Dr. Michael F. Patton, a pathologist, wrote in his report that the .22-caliber bullet passed through Michael's diaphragm, stomach, pancreas and aorta and lodged in the first lumbar vertebra. Cause of death was massive internal bleeding.</p><p>The lead investigator on the case at the time, Clarence Painter, said during the inquest, which was conducted Nov. 18, 1970, that he had a detective assigned full time to the Hinson case and pulled him off any other cases for several weeks. A State Law Enforcement Division agent also had been working the case.</p><p>“We have run out every lead that we have had information on, we have checked every '68 to '70 model Fury green Plymouth we've seen,” Painter told Adams. “We have run out every lead that we know to run out at this time.”</p><p>Michael's mother, Billie Hinson, attended the inquest. Her anguish a month after her son's death, with no arrest, is evident from the transcript.</p><p>“Now all these people that seen these cars and the car had been settin' at that Shell station and it's light as day there at night, and yet, no service station attendant there can tell you the model car,” she said. “Plenty of people know cars, especially men.”</p><p>Painter replied that they had spoken to the night attendant at the Shell, who had heard the cars chasing or “running” each other, and at one point, the Plymouth cut through the station yard with the Ford behind. The attendant told investigators that the boys in the Ford with Michael had a large soda bottle and were shaking it at the Fury to try to get it to stop.</p><p>“The attendant told us he knew something was wrong and he got the license number of the Ford … but he failed to get the license number of the Plymouth,” Painter said.</p><p>After a coroner's inquest, a jury was asked to determine how Michael came to his death. The foreman read the verdict: “We the coroner's jury … find that Mike Hinson came to his death as the result of a bullet wound by an unknown assailant.”</p><p>Billie Hinson's frustration and grief still come across today, 43 years later. She still sheds tears as she talks about her son and the investigation into his death. She'll never forget the lead investigator, Painter, coming up to her the day after her son died.</p><p>“He said, 'Before this day is over, we'll know who killed your son,' ” she said.</p><p>But a month later, the case had grown cold. During the inquest, the family's attorney grilled an officer about the case.</p><p>“You never close a case, do you?” the attorney asked.</p><p>“No, sir; this case is still open,” officer Don Morgan replied.</p><p>“You keep working on it as long as you live?” the attorney asked.</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Morgan said.</p><p>Painter said during the inquest that he would call in Michael's friends, ask them a round of questions, then call them in a few days later to see if they remembered anything else. Eventually, though, investigators stopped getting any new information from the boys.</p><p>Billie Hinson expressed her frustration to Painter back then.</p><p>“Painter told me that the boys were getting tired of being called in for questioning,” said Billie Hinson, now 83. “I said, 'Well, I've got a son laying out there in Greenlawn.'”</p><p>A disturbing aspect of the case happened a week or two after the shooting.</p><p>Billie Hinson received a strange phone call from a woman.</p><p>“She said, 'Maybe that boy thought your son was going to harm him,'” Billie Hinson recalled. “I said, 'Who is this?' I felt like she knew something.”</p><p>Michael's father, Bob, now 80, believes that if the suspect or the woman who called are still alive, then there is someone out there who knows exactly what happened.</p><p>“It's been 43 years,” he said, his eyes welling with tears. “We don't want it forgotten.”</p><p>Billie and Bob Hinson and their daughter Pam Howell aren't saying that Michael was innocent during the incident. If someone shot him in self-defense, they want someone to talk to police about it.</p><p>“Give our family some peace,” Pam Howell, 62, said. “Tell the police who you are, why you did it. Just so we can know what happened and get some closure. It's been 43 years, but it doesn't really get any easier.”</p><p>Michael was a natural baseball player, a pitcher who made the varsity team as a ninth-grader at Dorman. His brother, Danny, three years older, had pitched the first no-hitter for Dorman during his time on the team. Michael didn't care for studying much, but he loved baseball. His letter jacket, wrapped in plastic, still hangs in a closet at the Hinsons' home.</p><p>Described by his sister as a “pretty boy,” Michael was well liked by the girls and had a girlfriend that the family believes he would have married.</p><p>But instead, his mother Billie Hinson said, “He didn't get to be a senior or graduate.”</p><p>If he had lived, Bob Hinson said he and Billie would probably have three or four more grandchildren, adding to the eight grandsons and 11 great-grandchildren they have.</p><p>“It feels like part of you is missing,” Bob Hinson said.</p><p>Investigator Wood first took over the Hinson case in 1999. He's spoken to a couple of men who were in the car that night. They say they don't remember much.</p><p>If the shooting happened today, investigators would likely have a clear picture of a suspect's vehicle, from gas station surveillance or any number of businesses in the area of Asheville Highway and California Avenue. Through the SLED Fusion Center, they could get a list of vehicles of the same type registered in Spartanburg County.</p><p>“You can narrow those down to a workable list,” Wood said. One of the boys with Michael said he thought he saw the car as he worked at Colonial Grocery on North Church Street (now the county administration building), but in 1970, a Fury wouldn't have stood out.</p><p>“I actually kind of developed a suspect, but I couldn't put him in a Fury,” Wood said.</p><p>And the phone call Billie Hinson received, had it happened today?</p><p>“It would have been traceable 10 different ways,” Wood said.</p><p>Wood believes the driver and passenger in the Fury may have gone to Spartanburg High School because they were seen turning into Glenwood Estate and Cleveland Park. That would explain why Michael and his friends didn't recognize them and why it was easy for the men in the Fury to lose the other group in the Cleveland Park area.</p><p>“It might explain how they disappeared,” said Wood, taking a drive around Cleveland Park on a recent afternoon. “With some of these houses, the driveway pulls around back.”</p><p>Even if the shooter felt that he pulled the trigger in self-defense, Wood hopes he will come forward. He believes there are at least three people who know what happened that fall night — the driver of the car and the passenger, along with the woman who called Billie Hinson. Wood theorizes that one of the two men in the car told their mother, who then called the grieving mother.</p><p>“I think the family deserves an explanation to why they lost a son,” Wood said. “You don't want things like this to be unsolved in your community. What should have been a fistfight turned into a gunshot.”</p>